Individual Electronic

Report

CW2

MG510





SI: 21130637
Word:2827


Executive Summary
Within this report it will go into how Ping created their agency, and what theories and methods they
used to create the best brand positioning they could on entering the business. There is two briefs
within this report, the first that was written about did not get taken forward and strategized by the
agency as it was not right for them so the client the agency took on was AmaZing Venues, a client
that was built up by an entrepreneur in a few short years that needed Ping to help with brand
positioning and exposure to their markets. The report is finished off with a reflective summary on
how the models helped with their agency and the issues they faced with the client brief.






















Supporting Evidence:
Critical Review of both client briefs:
The European Commission has approached Ping with a brief for a massive campaign for Youth
employment. The target of the campaign was for European people under 25 with an aim to increase
awareness that youth need support with a main focus on the opportunities young people have
through the European Commissions Youth Employment initiatives.
This campaign would bring massive exposure to Ping if it was a success. The benefits: more clients of
a higher calibre, European exposure, positive CRM impact on the agency. The faults: The agency
does not have the capability to target all the European markets that they need to cover, being a
more hospitality based agency the client would not get the full data collection that they would need.
AmaZing Venues has set a brief that they agency can specialise in and focus much attention on with
also future business opportunity. The brief set wants the agency to work with them on developing
and promoting their brand as it is a new business, whilst updating their social media and online
presence.
Taking on this client would be great for Ping as not only will it bring future business as a partnership
but it would also be comfortable in our range of expertise. The main aspect that Ping believes would
add to the agency from taking this client on is that it goes hand in hand with the beliefs of
importance in branding and client protection, which is why this client brief will be taken forward and
worked on.

Creative Brief:

Creative Brief for AmaZing Venues

Brand:
AmaZing Venues
Background:

AmaZing Venues is a handpicked collection of six unique and iconic luxury venues bursting with
character, heritage and style which span the length of the British Isles.

The venue collection was launched in 2010 as AmaZing Retreats. In March 2012, Clarenco
rebranded the group under the umbrella brand of Clarenco and each Venue had its own individual
website. In September 2013, the group rebranded to AmaZing Venues, with each property featured
on the AmaZing Venues website instead of individual sites.

Incorporating Venues in the brand name more closely reflects the companys vision; Retreats
implied accommodation as a primary function. However this is not the preferred vision for the client
and they wish to have their brand viewed as an exclusive range of venues for hire for special
occasions and events, rather than the previously implied accommodation. Exclusive use is crucial
selling the venues to the right people who will use them exclusively for their proposed purpose.

AmaZing Venues is very much a new business, and still evolving. 2013 was regarded as the
foundation year; a year for putting standards and operational policies in place.

Target Audience:

Customer market profiles have been created following postcode data analysis with regards to all
bookings made for each venue. Website traffic has also been collated with regards to
amazingvenues.co.uk. Customer insight other than this is minimal, and so further research should be
conducted with the infiltration of email marketing and orchestrating customer surveys is also
recommended for implementation.

With this taken into consideration the client would like to target local regional and national
audiences; With audiences divided into sub categories relating to each purpose for the venues eg:
Weddings (brides; planners; suppliers); Corporates (PAs, Procurement, Agents, MICE; film locations)
and Celebrations (e.g. luxury stag & hen weekends), although not to detract from the need to build
awareness. Themed Events have a local/regional focus.


AmaZing Venues Mission:

To buy, develop and market iconic venues, establishing AmaZing Venues as leaders in the weddings,
corporate and themed events markets


Target Audience:


Customer market profiles have been created following postcode data analysis with regards to all
bookings made for each venue. Website traffic has also been collated with regards to
amazingvenues.co.uk. Customer insight other than this is minimal, and so further research
should be conducted with the infiltration of email marketing and orchestrating customer surveys
is also recommended for implementation.

With this taken into consideration the client would like to target local regional and national
audiences. With audiences divided into sub categories relating to each purpose for the venues
eg: Weddings (brides; planners; suppliers); Corporates (PAs, Procurement, Agents, MICE; film
locations) and Celebrations (e.g. luxury stag & hen weekends), although not to detract from the
need to build awareness. Themed Events have a local/regional focus.

Desired Audience Actions:

Be aware of Venues
Book in for Themed Events
Book Weddings/Corporate Events
Book Venues for Celebrations


Business Objectives:

Achieve revenue target (2014 - 11m) via increasing Wedding, Corporate and Themed Event
trade; reducing contribution from leisure.
Ensuring operational efficiency at each Venue and through central support office
Developing the portfolio a seventh property is due to open

Communications Objectives:

Improve local community awareness and advocacy per Venue
Drive national awareness of the brand
Convert prospects to customers by category at a local, regional and national level



Creative Direction:
On a national level, creating a Brand focus promoting all Venues and category capabilities
On a local and regional level, a more direct approach to promote specific events
Utilise PR & website, email, search, social channels for both brand & direct response
Reconstruct the brand image with regards to graphics and presentation to solidify the
brands mission and values, whilst also creating consistency across all of the venues, thus far
creating a recognisable and trusted brand

Budget:

150,000 (Excl. VAT) to be applied from May 1
st
2014 Dec 31
st
2014


Strategic Communications plan with Time plan:
Time Plan

- May 1
st
meet with different designers to discuss constructing new brand image through
graphics and presentation
- May 9th
th
Pick designer and send brand image presentation with reasoning to AmaZing
Venues head office
- May 12
th
discuss with team the digital platforms we intend to use
- May 16
th
meeting within the agency to finalise plans for digital targeting
- May 19
th
Start targeting social media for brand and venues (Work on this all through June)

- 1
st
July Meet with a website developer to set plans for an update of branding to the
website
- 3
rd
July - View plans from Web developer for website make plans for EDMS that will go
out monthly with offers, news and updates
- 21
st
July launch new website use social media platforms and create an editorial and
advertorial to go out to corporate, hospitality and bridal magazines

- 4
th
August create a plan for data capture using geographical targeting i.e. postcodes
- 11
th
August meet with client to discuss how happy they are with how things are going and
any additions
- 18
th
August Launch an online competition so that when consumers take part they are
entering a full set of data

- 1
st
September Analyse data capture and set plans for which category/venue is going to be
targeted most to which postcode
- 8
th
September create a PR campaign for celebrations push Christmas parties for families
and corporate business
- 15
th
September Work on campaign and launch for a brand new venue for rest of
September all through October for launch on the 10
th
of November

- 1
st
November Target media magazines, online, bloggers make sure they all still intend to
attend launch party
- 5
th
November put out news release to local, regional and national newspapers and online
to reveal information for launch party
- 6
th
November create adverts for all category magazine and send out
- 12
th
November create a report for client on how well launch went and feedback from press

- 1
st
December Final push through all social media, PR and direct marketing for Christmas
parties/celebrations/getaways.

Key Management points
- Make sure client can be always updated Keep a pdf of every advert and release that we
have ever done
- Each executive will have their own set of objectives and workload that they will own and
report back to client themselves on
- Weekly meetings will take place between all account executives to make sure everything is
going to plan and the clients brand is always at the forefront of the ideas
- Above all the revenue target must be tracked. Targets will be set within the executives to
make sure they are always hitting the target for client





Contact Reports
Ping PR
Contact Report Number 1
Date meeting held - 1st April
Meeting held at Ping PR Headquarters
Present for agency: All Account Directors
Beth Lewis, Cameron Hurrion, Emilie Daly
Meeting Purpose: To determine which directors are taking on parts in the different briefing
documents.











Activity: Action Agreed: Owner: Completed By:
Meeting with agency
Clarenco
Meeting to receive
AmaZing Venues
brief.
Emilie Daly 3
rd
April

Secondary and
Primary research on
terms
Individual research to
relay back to group.
(Use of journals,
articles etc.)
Primary
Questionnaire.
All Directors
(Primary - Emilie
Daly)
(Secondary - Beth
Lewis & Cameron
Hurrion)
4
th
April
Critical Review of
both client briefs
(Agency and Ad
venture)
To collect client briefs,
come together discuss
and then construct
critical review.
All Directors 7th April
Group together other
contact reports from
previous meetings
/
All directors (As there
has been separate
meetings with
different clients)
8
th
April

Ping PR
Contact Report Number 2
Date meeting held - 9th April
Meeting held at Ping PR Headquarters
Present for agency: All Account Directors
Beth Lewis, Cameron Hurrion, Emilie Daly
Meeting Purpose: Internal assessment of the progress made, and delegation of the next phase.

Activity: Action Agreed: Owner Completed By:
COMPLETED -
discussed brief,
research and progress
made
Critically reviewed
briefs.
Relayed research
information back to
one another.
All Directors 9th April
Creative Brief Creative brief in
relevance to strategic
brief.
Beth Lewis 10th April
Time Plan for the
client including key
managing points
Construct in relation to
due dates and
importance. Create in
accordance with the
Creative brief.
Emilie Daly 11th April
Final group meeting All Account Directors
to meet and discuss
work achieved, to
ensure Agency is
ready to move on to
reflective stage.
All Directors 14th April








Reflective summary:
The main aim tasks were: to design a brand image, update their social media site, develop website
and create EDMs, work on their geographical targeting an data capture, create an online
competition for more exposure, analysis report on data capture and publication of results, create a
PR campaign for celebrations, launch a new venue, target magazines online, bloggers etc., report
on the launch, finalisation on push on Christmas parties. This will all be completed over an eight
month period with regular meetings with client to keep them updated and make sure they are
always happy with the work being done.
The issues faced with this brief was the aspect of design, the agency does not employ a design team
so had to outsource and bring in a designer which was an added cost but meant that the client got
exactly what they wanted. The staff that worked on the brief was one account director that met
firstly with the client to secure their business and then two account executives, this really added to
the clients experience as they were all very capable staff that had the standard AmaZing Venues
were looking for, all the team members added to the clients experience which was the main aspect
of the whole business agreement.
When planning how Ping wanted to display the business, one of the first theories used was MACRO
contextual analysis, this was the process of analysing the business that was being operated in, it
allowed to consider the entire environment the business was in, with this information it laid the
foundation to build a better strategic plan for the agency to create. Along with the MACRO analysis
PESTEL was used as this was another form of research that Ping found insightful. The PESTEL
analysis is a useful tool for understanding the big picture of the environment in which an
organisation is operating (CIPD: 2013). Ping wanted a full background check on the business
segment in which they were operating in, so the use of models and theories were vital to the part
they wanted to play in the PR and marketing agency business that they wanted to go into.
Figure 1.0 shows the Ashridge business model, Ping have used this to help with their agency business
targets, to create the purpose of why the company exists using the company values to make a better
business that goes with the employee vales and then have the same standards and behaviours base.
All this comes into the business strategy to create a better competitive position. It can be internal
and external and comprise of actuating and inspiring employees and managers to higher degrees of
performance (Campbell, A: 1998), when it comes to corporate positioning Ping have a set of ideals
that they stick too. An effective positioning strategy is to take a company characteristic and
leverage it into an advantage (Markgraf, B: 2014), so Ping take clients on that have a personal touch
as the agency is all about the personality of a brand and not the corporate feeling.
Ping has also created their brand on portfolio positioning this is the aspect of deciding how to
allocate investment across the portfolio (Riley, J: 2012). The portfolio is analysed by the Boston
matrix so that they can categorise the products into one of four different areas based on: Market
share and growth number of potential customers. From this Ping can determine which categories
of their business have a high or low market share and the growth of the business. The aim for Ping is
to have products of their business in all categories par dogs.
Figure 1.2 shows the SWOT analysis break down, Ping see their strengths as being an agency of PR
and marketing so have a broad quality of skills, they are a personal business not in a holding
company so they are owned by themselves and like to work with companies of a similar aspect. The
weakness of Ping is that at the moment they are a hospitality and travel agency and that affects the
business they can bring in as they have specialised in only that segment of businesses. Opportunities
of Ping would also be part of their weakness the hospitality business grows everyday so there is
always lots of business opportunity there, they have a lot of personal aspects to the agency so this
will appeal to a niche client that will keep their business with the same agency that has their morals.
The threats that they face are the same as every agency; that another agency of the same business
segment will come up behind them, steal their business and be better. To avoid this Ping have
signed up their staff to take workshops and training schemes regularly so that they keep up with
every new aspect of PR and marketing communications.
Ansoffs product/market growth matrix suggests that a businesss attempts to grow depend on
whether it markets new or existing products in new or existing markets (Riley, J: 2012). The Ansoff
Matrix is another model that Ping uses in their business development. The output from using this
method is a series of suggested growth strategies which set the direction for the business strategy.
This is helpful to Ping as it enables a set off tasks that will keep this business thriving and constantly
ahead of any other similar agency. It looks at new markets, existing markets, existing products and
also new products, through that it explores market penetration, product development, market
development and diversification. Again, this will help Ping to stay current and on top of their market.


















Appendices:
Figure 1.0








Figure 1.1

Figure 1.2

Group Participation:
Emilie:
- collected all the information from the AmaZing Venues business (Primary research)
- wrote time and strategic plan
- key management points
Beth:
- wrote creative brief
Cameron:
- wrote contact reports
All members attended meetings for secondary research and to create the agency that they wanted
to come across.

References:
- CIPD (2013) PESTEL: Factsheet (online) available: www.cipd.co.uk/hr-
resources/factsheets/pestle-analysis.aspx [27/04/2014]
- Riley, J (2012) Ansoff Matrix (online) available:
www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/ansoff_matrix.htm [27/04/2014]
- Riley, J (2012) Portfolio positioning (online) available:
www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/bcg_box.htm [25/04/2014]
- Markgraf, B (2014) Corporate positioning (online) available:
www.smallbusiness.chron.com/corporate-positioning-strategy-64502.html [27/04/2014]